Tent-Peg

I want to say a built you a Circus
to get your attention;

but the truth is,
you would have noticed
if I’d hammered a single tent peg;

you’re busy,
but you see.

If I were a slightly better liar,

I would say I built a Circus
as the barest token of my esteem,

that I could not think of a way of telling you I liked you

unless I could say it with a dozen brass bands, under
some vast balleyhoo of a giant tent.

The truth is,
this is your circus,
and these are your monkeys

(except Herman; Herman doen’t
play well with others, and I’m
training him to be a bartender/assassin;
I’ll introduce you once I’m 100% certain
he knows the difference.

Some lovers would send a single
perfect
rose,

others,
a map of the heart,
drawn with disciplined rhyme.

I am simply fleshing out some of your ideas,
tearing them out of Perhaps and into IT IS,
and powering it with the collective gasp
of a thousand chests

watching the trapeze-artist
(apparently)
miss her swing, and–

Why not come in?

The elephants ate the caviar,
the roustabouts drank
the elderberry wine,

but I have popcorn,
and whiskey,

and the Greatest Show I could ever

lay at your feet.

Jeff Mach Written by:

Jeff Mach is an author, playwright, event creator, and certified Villain. You can always pick up his bestselling first novel, "There and NEVER, EVER BACK AGAIN"—or, indeed, his increasingly large selection of other peculiar books. If you'd like to talk more to Jeff, or if you're simply a Monstrous Creature yourself, stop by @darklordjournal on Twitter, or The Dark Lord Journal on Facebook.